Green Cloud Defense Now Acts as MSPs’ Cloud, Cybersecurity Department

Green Cloud Technologies recently closed its acquisition of Cascade Defense, a managed security service provider in Spokane, Washington.

The combination of the two companies means Green Cloud now goes by Green Cloud Defense. Furthermore, the merger makes Green Cloud Defense one of the largest independent, channel-only infrastructure-as-a-service providers in the United States.

For channel partners, that amounts to a one-stop shop for cloud and cybersecurity platforms. Green Cloud works with more than 650 MSPs and VARs. Thanks to the former Cascade Defense, partners now have access to fully managed security information and event management (SIEM) software. They also benefit from Green Cloud Defense’s status as a Fortinet MSSP Expert. And they gain access to the company’s security operations center, which they can take advantage of as a service.

Green Cloud Defense’s headquarters remain in Greenville, South Carolina, where Green Cloud Technologies started in 2011. Cascade Defense founders Eric Foster and Steve Sims work out of the new Green Cloud Defense Spokane office. They hold new roles, too. Foster now serves as Green Cloud Defense’s vice president of security operations. Sims works as Green Cloud Defense’s vice president of security and chief information security officer.

Keith Coker is CEO and co-founder of Green Cloud Defense.

“Everything we do at Green Cloud Defense is to better serve our channel partners,” Coker said. “Bringing new talent and technology to our current offerings will take our company to the next level and give our security capabilities a significant boost.”

As a result of the Cascade Defense deal, Green Cloud Defense now employs 70 people. It serves 685 channel partners, operates six data centers and has a new office in Spokane.

Not Just A Security Offering So MSPs ‘Can Check A Box’

Green Cloud Defense’s Charles Houser

Channel Futures wanted to know a bit more about the Green Cloud-Cascade Defense merger. We sat down with Charles Houser, co-founder and executive vice president of sales and marketing for Green Cloud Defense, to learn more.

Channel Futures: What made Cascade Defense the best choice for Green Cloud?

Charles Houser: Green Cloud’s CTO worked with Cascade Defense’s founders several years ago at a different employer, and he had great respect for Steve and Eric’s expertise and passion to grow their cybersecurity business. When the entire Green Cloud team got to know Steve and Eric better, we quickly realized their company culture and desire to become a full-service infrastructure and security provider for MSP partners matched up with Green Cloud’s extremely well.

CF: What does this deal mean for channel partners? I’d love for you to go into specifics about what’s changing and what partners are more enabled to do.

CH: It means we are going to be launching a full-service security offering in addition to our existing infrastructure business. This includes SIEM as a service, SOC as a service, fully managed firewall, EDR and MDR. We will provide monthly reporting for our partners that they can brand and share with their end users. We will also provide our partners access to Steve Sims (Green Cloud CISO) so he can explain what the SOC analysts are seeing through the SIEM and what threats are out there. It’s not just going to be a security offering so these MSPs can check a box. We are going to provide more value than they can currently get.

CF: Why was now the right time to team with Cascade Defense?

CH: Green Cloud chose to expand now because the need for security services was expanding, and the pandemic accelerated our need to strengthen this capability. With the capital, intellectual property and expertise, we have sped up our time to market by two quarters, acquired a Fortinet Expert MSSP partner, strengthened our employee base with the addition of 10 new employees and added a security operations center that is currently evaluating SIEM logs and reporting those findings back to our partners.

CF: What does Green Cloud intend to help partners do that’s unique within the security environment they’re now facing (mostly because of COVID-19 and all its related cyber threats)?

CH: We gathered feedback from dozens of existing MSP partners about their likes and dislikes of their current security vendor. In general, they aren’t satisfied because their current provider isn’t making sense of the inbound logs. They are just providing them the data, and the MSP engineer has to spend a lot of time trying to make sense of it. Green Cloud Defense is going to change that to better serve our 685+ partners.

CF: Other thoughts to add?

CH: This doesn’t mean we are not going to be focused on our established infrastructure business. We have built a $30 million business that is growing rapidly. We just see the security opportunity as another way to help our MSPs sell more services with attractive margins without them personally building a team of people to support it. Also, we have built a successful company becoming our partners’ cloud department and now with the addition of Cascade, Green Cloud Defense will be MSPs’ cybersecurity department as well.